American Social Science Association. 




THE 



, 



|r0ittcit0tt | ptriknmt 4 ij^Itk 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVEKED AT THE DETROIT MEETING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIAL 
SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, MAY 11, 1875. 



DAVID A. WELLS, 

PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. 




PUBLISHED FOR THE 

AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION 

Br A. WILLIAMS & CO., 

283 Washington St., Boston. 

also for sale by 

O P PUTNAM'S SONS., NEW YORK. ROBERT CLARKE & CO., CINCINNATI, 

PORTER & COATES, PHILADELPHIA. 

1876. 



Franklin Press : Sand, Avery, If Co., Boston. 



CIRCULAR. 



In sending one of the recent publications of the American Social Science 
Association to libraries, and to persons not yet members, we would again 
express a sense of the success and importance of its work. Our list of mem- 
bers comprises names in nearly all parts of the United States, and forms a 
bond of connection for all who are interested in political and social advance- 
ment. The other principal means of action throughout the country are either 
political in the paity sense, or commercial ; both being subject to bias from 
private interest. The need of an organization animated solely by a desiie for 
the public welfare was never greater than now. 

It is evident, that never before in the history of our country has so much 
attention been given to the investigation and comprehension of the principles 
which underlie human society, and the application of which tends to ameliorate 
the condition of mankind. To concentrate these investigations, and to bring 
into association kindred minds working upon kindred subjects, and in this 
way draw to a focus the lines of action and influence now separate, possibly 
divergent, is the purpose of our Association, rather than the advocacy of any 
theory or any formula of administration. This work the American Social 
Science Association entered upon ten years ago, and has prosecuted with 
some degree of success ; but to extend its sphere, and make its results truly 
national, a larger co-operation is now most desirable. 

To aid in this work, the assistance of all persons interested in any of the 
departments of Social Science is solicited, at least to the extent of annual 
membership. The inducement which we oiT'er is. primarily and chiefly, that 
which has moved others in sustaining the Association hitherto, — namely, the 
satisfaction of promoting a work which has now become nectssary, and the in- 
fluence of which, in some form, affects the material interests of every member 
of the community. At the same time we offer the right to participate in the 
government of i he Association, and its annual meetings; also the yearly pub- 
lications of the Association, which, each member is entitled to receive, and 
which are annually increasing in value and variety of interest. All the services 
rendered to the Association are gratuitous, with the exception of the expenses 
of publication, and the small expenditure necessary to maintain a central office 
of record and correspondence. 

The Journal of Social Science, the Eighth Number of which is just published 
by A. Williams & Co., Boston ; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York ; Porter & 
Coates, Philadelphia ; and Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, — includes the 
paper herewith sent, and others, among which is Mr. David A. Wells's 
address at Detroit, on the Production and Distribution of Wealth, which is sold 
separately. Previous numbers of the Journal (the contents of which, with a 
list of papers separately published, will be found herewith) niay be ordered 
of these publishers, or of 

F. B. Sanborn, Secretary of the Association. 

5 Pembkrton Square, Boston, May, 1876. 



THE 



|ro(Iudtoit I fariktiott of Ipltk 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVEEED AT THE DETROIT MEETING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIAL 
SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, MAY 11, 1875. 



DAVID A. WELLS, 

PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. 



PUBLISHED FOR THE 

AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION 

By A. WILLIAMS & CO., 

283 Washington St., Boston. 

also fok sale by 

Q. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK. ROBERT CLARKE & CO., CINCINNATI. 

PORTER & COATES, PHILADELPHIA. 

1876. 



\ 



«»>■ 



^S.t.VwuL 



INFLUENCE OF THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION 
OF WEALTH ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

By David A. Wells. 

Being the Annual Address of the President of the Association. 
Bead at Detroit, May 11, 1875. 

^ Ladies and Gentlemen, — In welcoming yon to this first meeting 
in the States of the North-west, of the American Association for 
the Promotion of Social Science, with the address which ancient 
custom and a recognition of the fitness of things seems to require 
should he made by the presiding officer on such occasions, I propose to 
ask your attention to a line of thought touching the agencies which 
perhaps more than any other, are contributing to the moulding and 
development of society ; namely, the production or accumulation, and 
the distribution, of that which we call wealth, or capital : meaning 
therebj' abundance of all those things which contribute to our well- 
being, comfort, and happiness. 

And, in so doing, the first point I would ask you to consider is, 
that, out of all of his present accumulations of wealth, man has 
never created any thing. What Nature gives, he appropriates; and 
in this appropriation, or collection of natural spontaneous products 
consists the original method of earning a living, — the method still 
mainly depended on by all uncivilized and barbarous people. The first 
advance upon this method is to make provision for the future by 
carrying over supplies from seasons of abundance to seasons of scarci- 
ty, or in learning the necessity and' benefits of accumulation. But, in 
all this, man does nothing more than the animals, who, following what 
we term the promptings of instinct, gather and lay up stores in the 
summer for consumption in the winter; and he lifts himself above the 
animals only when, and proportionally as, he learns that he can tempt 
Nature to give more abundantly, by bringing various kinds of matter 
and various forces together, or into such relations as will enable them 
to act upon each other under the most favorable circumstances. And 
it is in the attainment and application of this knowledge of how to 
tempt Nature to give, — or, as we term it, " to produce" using to 
express our meaning most correctly a word which signifies " to lead 
forth" and not " to create" — that the distinction is to be found between 



4 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

the civilized and uncivilized methods of earning a living; man in the one 
case being mainly a collector, and in the other a "drawer-out" or pro- 
ducer. And herein, furthermore, is to be found the characteristic, or, as 
Chevalier the French economist expresses it, "the mystery and marvel, 
of our modern civilization; namely, that, through the attainment and 
exercise of increased knowledge and experience, we have so far come 
to know the properties of matter and the forces of Nature, as to 
enable us to compel the two to work in unison for our benefit with 
continually increasing effectiveness ; and so afford to us from genera- 
tion to generation a continually increasing product of abundance with 
a continually diminishing necessity for the exercise of physical labor." 
And, as some evidence of the degree of success thus far attained to in 
this direction, we have the simple statement, — yet of all things the 
one most marvellous in our experience, — that at the present time, in 
Great Britain alone, the force annually evolved through the combus- 
tion of coal, and applied to the performance of mechanical work, is 
directly equivalent to the muscular power of at least one hundred mil- 
lions of men ; or, to state the case differently, the result attained to is 
the same as if the laboring population of Great Britain had been in- 
creased twelve-fold, without necessitating any material increase in pro- 
duction for the support and sustenance of this additional number. 

Another illustration to the same effect, but one more recent and less 
familiar, is afforded by the construction and operation of the Suez 
Canal. Thus, a few years ago, a swift voyage from England to Cal- 
cutta, via the Cape of Good Hope, was from a hundred and ten to 
a hundred and twenty days. Now steamers by way of the canal make 
the same vo3'age in about thirty days. H^re, then, is a diminution of 
seventy-five per cent on the enormous stocks of goods continually re- 
quired to be held unused, involving continued risk of depreciation, loss 
of interest, and cost of insurance, to meet the requirements of mere 
transit. Add to which the fact, that the improvements in marine en- 
gines enable these vessels to work with about one-tenth less coal, and 
therefore carry proportionally more cargo, than they could seven or 
eight years ago ; and that the construction of the telegraph between 
England and India enables dealers and consumers also to regulate their 
supplies without cariwing excessive stocks of commodities, keeps prices 
steady, and discourages speculation, — and we have in this single depart- 
ment of trade and commerce a saving and release of capital and labor 
for other purposes and employments, that amounts to a revolution. 

What is yet to be accomplished in the wa}^ of increasing the propor- 
tion of product to manual labor, time alone can show; but there is no 
evidence at present to indicate that we are approaching any limitation 
to further progress in this direction. A writer in " The London Econo- 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 5 

mist " in 1873, evidently most conversant with his subject, claimed that 
the industry of the population of Great Britain at that time, taken 
man for man, was nearly twice as productive as it was in 1850; and I 
do not think that any one can review the industrial experience of the 
United States as a whole since 1860, hut must feel satisfied that 
our average gain in the power of production during that time, and in 
spite of the war, has not been less than from fifteen to twenty per 
cent. And, if this statement should seem to any to be exaggerated, 
it is well to call to mind, that it is mainly within the last fifteen years 
that the very great improvements in machinery adapted to agri- 
culture have been brought into general use; that whereas a few years 
ago, men on the great fields of the West cut grain with sickles and 
with cradles, toiling from early morn to dewy eve in the hottest period 
of the year, the same work may be done now almost as a matter of 
recreation; the director of a mechanical reaper entering the field be- 
hind a pair of horses, with gloves on his hands, and an umbrella over 
his head, and in this style finishing the work in a fraction of the time 
which many men would formerly have required, and in a manner much 
more satisfactory. I would also recall to you, that, in the manufacture 
of boots and shoes, three men now, with the aid of machinery, can 
produce as much in a given time as six men unaided could have done 
in 1860; that we have forty thousand more miles of railroad now than 
we then had to assist us in the work of exchange and distribution ; 
that we can send our telegrams now for less than one-half what it 
actually cost to do the work in 1866 ; and finally, taking the Pennsyl- 
vania Central Railroad as a type, that we can send our freight by rail- 
road at an average of 1.48 of a cent per ton per mile, as compared with 
a charge of 2.41 on the same road for the same service in 1864. 

And, as a curious incident of this continuous progress, it may be here 
also noted, that the abandonment of large quantities of costly machin- 
ery in most branches of staple manufactures, and its replacement by 
new, is periodically rendered a matter of absolute economical necessity, 
in order to produce more perfectly and cheaply, and at the same time 
avoid the destruction of a much greater amount of capital by industrial 
rivalry ; thus strikingly illustrating an economic principle to which 
attention was, I think, first called by my friend Mr. Atkinson of 
Boston, — that the absolute destruction of what has once been wealth 
often marks a greater step in the progress of civilization than any 
great increase in material accumulation ; the breaking-up and destruc- 
tion of the old machinery, and its replacement by new, in the cases 
referred to, being the sole conditions under which a diminution of the 
cost of production could be effected, and the abundance of product be 
made greater. 



6 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

We are often accustomed to speak of, and perhaps look forward to, a 
period which we call " millennial," which is to be characterized in par- 
ticular by an absence of want of all those things which minister to our 
material comfort and happiness. But when that period arrives, if it 
ever does, one of two things must take place : either man must so far 
change his nature as to be able to exist in comfort without a supply of 
all those objects which are comprised under the general terms, food, 
clothing, shelter, and luxuries ; or else the forces of nature must be so 
much further subordinated and brought under our control, as to do all 
our work for us, instead of, as now, doing but a part ; and thus become 
in all respects our all-sufficient ministers and servants. 

But, when that time comes, then all material wealth, as we ordinarily 
use the term, must disappear; for that only is wealth which has 
exchangeable value, and that only has exchangeable value which is 
desired. But we can neither value nor desire that which, like the air, 
is at all times given to all, in excess of any possible use or necessity. 

But, fanciful as may be this speculation, it is nevertheless a most 
interesting and suggestive circumstance, that all of our true material 
progress constantly points in this same direction : inasmuch as the 
great result of every new invention or discovery in economic processes 
is to eliminate or discharge value ; making those things cheap 
which were before dear, and bringing within the reach and use of all 
what before were for the exclusive use and enjoj-ment of the few. 
Thus, in 1170, Thomas A Becket was accounted extravagant because 
he had his parlor strewed every day with clean rushes ; and, four hun- 
dred years later, cloth was so scarce that Shakspeare makes Falstaff's 
shirts cost him four shillings per ell. But few are so poor nowadays 
as not to be able to afford some sort of a carpet for their parlor; and, 
making allowance for the purchasing power of money at the different 
epochs, Falstaft's four shillings would now give him near forty times 
the same quantity. 

Again : Sir Henry Bracton, who was Lord Chief Justice of England 
in the time of Henry III., wrote in the way of legal illustration, that 
if a man living in Oxford engage to pay money the same day in 
London, a distance of fifty-four miles, he shall be discharged from his 
contract, by reason of his undertaking to do a physical impossibility. 
But to-day, what Bracton regarded as impossible, can be readily 
accomplished in from sixty to eighty minutes. 

That this wonderful and continued increase in the gross product 
of every department of human industry and enterprise has been also 
attended with a general rise in the standard of comfort, leisure, and 
enjoyment, available everywhere to the masses, is sufficiently proved by 
not only the most superficial of observation, but also by a great variety 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 7 

of statistics, which, although not as yet in any degree formulated or 
referred to an average, are nevertheless exceedingly interesting. 

Thus, for example, the British commercial reports indicate that the 
ability of the populations of Russia and of Germany to consume cotton 
has at least doubled since 1851 ; that in Sweden the increase has been 
fourfold ; and in Paraguay, fivefold. And not merely has the consump- 
tion of cotton cloth increased in near and remote regions, but the ratio 
of absorption among the working classes of Europe, of articles which a gen- 
eration ago were luxuries to them, has also been most rapid and remarka- 
ble ; the ratio of increase having been most marked in the average per 
capita consumption of meats, tea, sugar, coffee, cocoa, wines, and spirits. 

But, gratifying as these evidences of increasing abundance certainly 
are, the cry of the poor, at least to the superficial observer, seems not 
less loud, and the difficulties of earning a living, or of getting ahead 
in the world, seem not less patent than they have always been ; while 
the discontent with the inequalities of social condition are certainly 
more strikingly manifested than at any former period. To understand 
fully the origin of this social paradox, is to presuppose a full under- 
standing of the whole domain of social science, or of the laws and 
phenomena involved in all societary relations ; a degree and compre- 
hensiveness of knowledge which it is safe to affirm has been attained 
to by no man. But there is, at the same time, a record of experience 
indicating the duties incumbent on society in respect to some of these 
matters, which cannot too often be pressed upon public attention. 

In the first stage of society, property can hardly be said to 
exist at all, or it exists in common. In the second stage, individual 
rights appear; but property is to a great extent held and transferred 
by force, and the generally accepted principle governing its distribu- 
tion is, that might confers right. As society has progressed, how- 
ever, the reign of violence and lawlessness has gradually diminished, 
until now the acquisition and retention of property has come to 
depend on superiority of intellect, quickness of perception, skill in 
adaptation, — the cunning and the quick being arrayed against 
the ignorant and the slow, — while the principle which has come 
to be the generally accepted basis of all commercial, industrial, and 
financial transactions, is succinctly expressed by the coarse and 
selfish proverb, " Every man for himself, and the Devil take the 
hindermost." And if we consider these terms as symbolical, and for 
the word "Devil" substitute absence of abundance, — want, misery, and 
privation ; and for the word " hindermost," the masses, who constitute 
the bulk of every densely populated community, — then it must be 
admitted, that the Devil thus far has been eminently successful. But 
the governing and controlling influences of society — meaning thereby 



8 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

the rich, the well-to-do and most intelligent classes — have for a con- 
siderable time found out one thing of importance, and are beginning to 
find out another thing of even greater significance. 

The thing which they have found out is, that it is not for the inter- 
est of any portion of society, regarded simpty from the point of view 
of individual selfishness, and not in accordance with the religion of 
Christ and humanity, to allow the Devil to take anywhere, or to any 
extent, the hindermost ; and the thing which they are beginning to find 
out is, that the hindermost, who constitute, in this struggle for the 
acquirement and retention of propert}', the masses, are becoming fast 
conscious of their power and influence, and are determined of them- 
selves, that they will not, if they can help it, be captured by this devil 
of civilization ; and, if obliged to succumb to him, may, like the com- 
munists of Paris, endeavor to draw down with them the whole fabric of 
society into one common vortex of destruction. 

Out of the first of these discoveries have come schools, hospitals, 
churches, sanitary and social reforms, the spirit and the power of 
charity, and all brotherly kindness ; out of the second, strikes, trades- 
unions, the crystallizing antagonism of labor against capital, the spirit 
and the teachings of socialism, the practice of communism. 

It took society a good while to make the first discovery ; but it has 
been forced upon it through bitter and costly experience. There was 
probably no less of kindness of heart five hundred years ago among 
individuals than now, no less of natural sympathy with the poor, no 
less of individual religious zeal to do as we would be done by. But 
society certainly did not act as now in respect to those things which 
society only can properly control and regulate ; as, for example, sanitary 
reform, general education, protection of private rights, and the like. 
And for such neglect society paid the penalty ; for, when the black- 
death and the plague came, they were no respecters of persons, and the 
rich in common with the poor went down to the slaughter. But when 
the well-to-do classes of society found out that these foes had their 
origin in want of drainage, and especially in lack of ventilation and 
cleanliness among the poor, and began to move in the matter, and pro- 
vide remedies, then the black-death and the plague abated, and finally 
disappeared altogether. 

During the reign of Henry VIII. , seventy-two thousand thieves 
are said to have been hanged in England alone ; which, if true, would 
indicate that "about one man in ten," during this reign, which ex- 
tended over two generations, was, to use the words of the old historian, 
"devoured and eaten up by the gallows." 1 But society has now found 

1 Mr. Froude, while regarding this statement as wholly unwarranted, nevertheless 
admits, that the English criminal law of that period "was in its letter one of the most 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 9 

out that hanging is one of the worst possible uses to which a man can 
be put to; and that it is a great deal cheaper to prevent than to 
punish, to incur effort and expenditure to save the inefficient and the 
criminal from becoming such, rather than to save society from them 
after they have once become so; and that, of one of these two courses, 
society lias got to take its choice. Furthermore, as showing how social 
science investigations are taking propositions of this character out of the 
domain of philanthropic theory, and making them practical matter-of- 
fact demonstrations, I submit to you the following illustrations. 

Thus it has been estimated in England, that the ordinary expense 
of bringing up a child from infancy to fourteen, in the best-managed 
public institutions or asylums, cannot be put down at less than 4s. Gd., 
or somewhat over a dollar (gold), per week; and for the United States 
it is undoubtedly much greater. But taking the minimum sum as the 
basis of estimate, and allowing nothing for anj' outlay for education or 
amusement, the cost at fifteen will have amounted without interest to 
about eight hundred dollars ; and at eighteen, allowing for all expen- 
ditures and for interest, each individual may be regarded as an invest- 
ment by society of at least fifteen hundred dollars of capital economized 
for production. 

oSfow, if from this period the individual fails to fully earn his own 
living, society loses not only the amount expended for his bringing-up, 
but other persons must be taxed on their labor and their capital to 
provide for his future support and maintenance; so that the general 
stock of abundance at the disposal of society is not increased, but dimin- 
ished. If the individual turns pauper or mendicant, and does nothing 
whatever for his own support, the cost to society will be greater, 
though differently apportioned. If he turns thief or criminal, he will 
be supported even yet more expensively by society ; for he will be 
maintained by plunder or in prison. But in whatever condition he 
may live, either idle or vicious, in prison or out of prison, the loss 
incurred by the community for each such individual for his life, which, 
after the attainment of fourteen years, is likely to continue until forty, 
cannot be less in the United States than five thousand dollars ; a loss 
in Massachusetts alone, in which State at least one in fourteen of her 
entire population are paupers, criminals, or needlessly idle and de- 
pendent, would be equivalent to an unproductive expenditure of over 
five hundred millions of capital — the results of some other person's 
labor — for each and every generation. 1 

severe in Europe;" and that, "in the absence of graduated punishment, there was but 
one step to the gallows from the lash and the branding-iron." 

1 For this illustration, I am indebted to the address of Mr. Edwin Chadwick, C. B., at 
the openiug of the meeting of the British Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 
1869-70. 



10 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

Another illustration to the same effect, drawn more directly from the 
domain of actual fact, and one of the most remarkable ever placed upon 
record, has been brought to the attention of the public during the past 
year, by members of this association, — Dr. Harris and Mr. R. L. Dug- 
dale of New York, — namely, the history of a female pauper child, who 
some eighty years ago, abandoned as an outcast in one of the interior 
towns of New York, and allowed by society to remain an outcast, has 
repaid to society its neglect by becoming the mother of a long line of 
criminals, paupers, prostitutes, drunkards, and lunatics ; entailing upon 
the county of her residence alone an expense of over one hundred 
thousand dollars, and upon society at large an estimated cost of 
over one million of dollars ; included under which last head, is an 
item of twenty- five thousand dollars for the simple prosecutions and 
trials of one hundred and twenty criminals and offenders, who re- 
ceived as the result an aggregate of one hundred and forty years' 
imprisonment. 1 

And thus it is, that reasoning from a purely economic point of view, 
and leaving all moral and religious conditions out of sight, we arrive 
at an absolute demonstration, that the very best thing society can do 
to promote its material interests, is to so far abandon its old principle 
of " each man for himselj "," that each man shall concern himself with 
the welfare of his neighbors and fellow-citizens to the extent at least of 
seeing that the Devil be nowhere permitted to take even the humblest 
and weakest of the hindermost. By many, perhaps by a majority of 
the community, the Association for the Promotion of Social Science is 
undoubtedly looked upon as an association of doctrinaires • clever men 
naturally, but at the same time men of seclusion and of study, unac- 
quainted with the details of practical life, who like to meet together 

1 Of the descendants of this pauper child and her sisters, 709 have been accurately 
tabulated; while researches by Mr. Dugdale indicate that the total aggregate of their 
descendants reach the large number of 1,200 perscns, living and dead. 

" Of the 709, 91 are known to be illegitimate and 368 legitimate, leaving 250 un- 
known as to birth. 128 are known to be prostitutes; 18 kept houses of ill-fame; and 
67 were diseased, and therefore cared for by the public. Only 22 ever acquired property, 
and eight of these lost what they had gained; 172 received outdoor relief during au 
aggregate number of 734 years; 64 were in the almshouse of the county, and spent there 
an aggregate number of 96 years; 76 were publicly recorded as criminals. 

" The crimes of the females were licentiousness, and those of the males violence and 
theft. But the record quoted is merely their public history of criminality, which is 
necessarily very imperfect. Great numbers of offences of this wretched family were 
never entered on any court records; and hundreds were never brought to trial. Another 
appailing feature in this history of criminal inheritance is the disease spread through the 
county by these vagrant children, and the consequent lunacy, idiocy, epilepsy, and final 
weakness of body and mind, which belongs to inherited pauperism, transmitted to so 
many human beings." — Report of Children's Aid Society, Nev> York, 1875. 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 11 

periodically, hear themselves talk, and see their names appended to 
long articles in the magazines and newspapers. To any such I would 
commend, for instruction and conversion, a typical illustration of 
social science work, as embodied in a paper ( by Dr. W. E. Boardman 
of Boston, recently published by the State Board of Health of Massa- 
chusetts. In this paper it is shown that the rate of mortality in 
Massachusetts — twenty in a thousand — is higher than in most 
of the States of the Union ; that it compares quite unfavorably with 
many of the larger cities of Europe, that it tends to increase rather 
than diminish, and more especially that there is an increasing amount 
of death and sickness from causes which are known to be avoidable ; 
also, that there is every reason to suppose, that by encouraging the 
study and following out the teachings of sanitary science, the death- 
rate of the State can be speedily reduced from twenty to fifteen per 
thousand ; and, that in case this is done, the saving in the cost of sick- 
ness and disability to the working classes alone of the State will not be 
less than three millions of dollars per annum. Now, if the man who 
makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, is a public 
benefactor, how much more so is the individual who, by the patient 
gathering and study of statistics like these, convinces a community of 
a danger in respect to which it would otherwise be long ignorant ; and 
then, as the result of such conviction, initiates a reform which not only 
greatly diminishes the aggregate of human suffering, but also greatly 
increases the aggregate of material abundance ? Nay, further, can any 
soil be cultivated, can any work be done, likely to yield so large 
fruition, so many blades bearing ears with full corn in the ear, as this 
work of the so-called doctrinaires ? 

And there is yet one other thing which society is also beginning to 
find out ; and that is, that all these questions relating to the production 
and distribution of wealth, and the avoidance on the part of society of 
waste, and the economizing of expenditure, affect an infinitely higher 
class of interests than those measurable by dollars and cents ; and that 
the laws underlying and controlling economic progress are either 
identical with the laws underlying and controlling intellectual, moral, 
and religious progress, or at least are so far similar and closely con- 
nected as to be mutually interdependent. And we hold furthermore, 
that it is mainly from a lack of perception and appreciation of this truth, 
especially by those to whom the mission of making men better is 
particularly intrusted, that so much of the work undertaken in these 
latter days by philanthropic and religious associations has been like 
seed sown upon stony ground, productive of but little benefit. 

" The study and investigation of these questions of taxation, currency, 
and the production and distribution of wealth," said one of our best- 



12 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

known philanthropists lately " are all very well, and undoubtedly most 
important ; but somehow they do not interest me. They seem 
to me to be wholly material, while the great thing, in my opinion, 
to be worked for on behalf of society, is the attainment of a larger 
life." 

Now, as to the ultimate issue and end of all our effort, I fully agree, 
a larger life is the one thing essential. It is the consummation of all 
social progress, the crowning glory of all Christian civilization ; the 
aspiration of a future state of existence. But on this earth, and while 
we continue in the flesh, in order that there may be a larger life, there 
must be an exemption from such servitude of toil as precludes leisure ; 
and, in order that there may be more leisure with less want, there must 
be greater abundance ; and, in order that there can be greater abun- 
dance, there must be larger production, more economical using, and a 
more equitable distribution. So that instead of there being any real 
or fancied antagonism, or diversity of interest, between the work of 
investigating and determining the laws which govern the production 
and distribution of wealth, and the business of calling men to a larger 
and a higher life, the former, as society is at present constituted, must 
be the forerunner and coadjutor of the latter; or the labor of the latter, 
as has been too often the case, will be labor in vain. 

When Van der Kempt, a Dutch missionary, first entered upon his 
work in South Africa, he devoted himself in the outset to the labor of 
reconstructing and improving the dwellings of the natives; and for 
this purpose followed for a time the business of the brickmaker, the 
mason, and the carpenter. When taken to task for doing these things, 
rather than devoting his whole time to the preaching of the gospel, he 
is said to have made answer substantially as follows : that while he 
had no doubt that the Spirit of God would enter a brush hut with a 
mud floor, and dwell therein, he felt equally certain that it would come 
more readily into a house with a tiled roof, dry floor, and glazed 
windows ; and, when there, would be more likely to abide permanently. 
And he was right; for the reason that it is not easy — nay, all but 
impossible — to lead a life of intellectuality, purity, and righteousness, 
amid filth, poverty, and all the adjuncts of physical debasement. And, 
if this proposition be correct, then it is a condition precedent to the 
future progress and well-being of society, first, that there shall be con- 
tinually increasing abundance ; and, second, that this abundance shall 
also, to the greatest extent consistent with the retention and exercise 
of individual freedom, be equally distributed among the masses. And 
the great question of the age, one which the course of events shows 
that we must before long, either voluntarily or involuntarily, meet and 
answer, is, How can these ends be best accomplished ? 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 13 

By the majority of those who have undertaken to discuss these 
questions in the interests of labor, the idea is put forth, that the ends 
desired can be most fully and rapidly attained through the enactment 
of law; but, in respect to the extent to which the law is to be made 
operative, the ideas which are entertained and expressed have no 
little of diversity. 

In Europe, the masses emerging from the sluggishness and torpor 
in which for centuries, like brutes, they have been content to suffer and 
to wait, and grasping at once the idea — long familiar to the people of 
this country — that all men are created equal, have speedily passed to 
a conviction, that, because thus created equal, they have, in common 
with all, an equal right to all acquired property. And hence we find 
such leaders in the labor-movement as Proudhon and others in France 
and Germany, assuming and maintaining the position " that property 
is theft." and demanding that through legislation the State shall take 
possession of all property, and provide for all its citizens an equal and 
adequate support. * 



i On the first publication of this address (newspaper report), very sharp criticism 
was made on the above allusion to the views of M. Proudhon and others of the communis- 
tic movement in Europe, by Mr. B. R. Tucker (translator of an American edition of the 
life and writings of Proudhon), and others, on the ground that the statement in question 
was incorrect, and did not fairly represent what Proudhon really did say and propose. 
As the subject is one of economic interest, the statement made by Mr. Tucker, in the 
labor-reform journal, " The World," is here given. 

" The Hon. David A. Wells, in a recent speech at the Social Science Convention in 
Detroit (portions of which we print on the first page), made two misstatements in regard 
to the doctrines of Proudhon, which need to be corrected. It is, of course, undeniable 
that Proudhon's first notable utterance to the world, and the one to which he chiefly owes 
his influence and celebrity, was the naked and startling assertion that ' property is robbery ; ' 
and the truth of this proposition, strange as it may seem to an American Professor of 
Social Science, he successfully maintained to the day of his death, but always with an in- 
terpretation of his own. Whether this interpretation is a correct one or not, it is not our 
purpose here to consider ; our only object at present being to show that Mr. Wells's assertion, 
though literally true, is in reality false. If by property is meant the possession and con- 
trol of one's earnings, that institution has no stancher or more intelligent defender than 
P. J. Proudhon of France. We recommend Mr. Wells to study that portion of Scripture 
which teacheth that ' the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.' In Proudhon's Second 
Memoir on Property, written in vindication of his course in publishing his First Memoir, 
which caused such consternation among the French smants, occurs the following passage, 
which explains the meaning attached by him to the ph-ase in question: — 

" ' I have, then, declared, my hand upon my heart, before God and men, that the onuses 
of social inequality are three in number: 1, gratuitous appropriation of the results of col- 
lective labor ; 2, inequality in exchange; 3, the right of profit or increase. And, since this 
threefold method of extortion is the very essence of the domain of property, I have denied 
the legitimacy of property, and proclaimed its identity with robbery. ... I have traced 
all secondary questions back to the one fundamental question over which at present so 
keen and diversified a conflict is raging, — the question of the right of property. Then, 
comparing all existing theories with each other, and extracting from them that which is 
common to them all, 1 have endeavored to discover that element in the idea of property 



14 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

Now, it would seem as if no argument could be needed in this 
country to expose the wickedness and folly of such a proposition ; and 
yet such doctrines, in a thinly disguised form, are continually preached 
in this country by men claiming to be respectable and intelligent, to a 
much greater extent than the community are generally aware; and 
not only preached, but received with an apparently increasing favor 
and interest. Thus, for example, in a tract issued by one of the recog- 
nized leaders of the eight-hour movement in Massachusetts, I find the 
statement that the ultimate end and meaning of this special labor 
reform is to be, the compulsory limitation of labor by legislative enact- 
ment to six hours per day ; and that, out of such a law and co-operation, 

which is necessary, immutable, and absolute, and have asserted, after authentic verifica- 
tion, that this idea is reducible to that of individual and transmissible possessiori, susceptible 
of exchange but not of alienation, founded on labor, and not on fictitious occupancy or idle 
caprice. 1 " 

On the other hand, Mr. W. Jungst, one of the editors of the Cincinnati " Volksfreund," 
formerly a member of one of the German Governments, and who has made the study of 
Communism in Europe a specialty, writes as follows: — 

" Mr. Wells was perfectly right in his Detroit speech, in saying that Proudhon's and 
other communists' intention was to abolish ali private property, and to have it owned by 
the commune (the new government of the working-men). M. Proudhon answers the 
questioning title of the book which gave him his reputation (published in 1840), ' Qu'est-ce- 
que la Propriete? ' ("What is Property V), with the plain clear words, which nobody can mis- 
understand, ' La propriete c'est le vol' (property is theft). Every one acquainted with 
the book of Proudhon referred to will admit the correctness of this quotation. M. Proud- 
hon demands the abolition of all property, and, in the first instance, that of all landed 
property, of interest, and of rent. He says, ' To whom belongs the rent of land? To the 
producer of land, without doubt. Who made the land? God. Then, proprietor, begone ! ' 
And, furthermore, 'Property is theft; and it is not necessary to maintain it; it is not ne- 
cessary to demand compensation for it; but what is necessary is to abolish it.' Similar 
assertions will be found in nearly all his books published prior to 1858; they form the 
leading idea in his first book mentioned above, — Qu' est-ce-que la Propriete? and partly in 
his Systbme des Contradictions e'eonomiques, ou Philosophic de la Misere. 

" No more proofs or quotations from M. Proudhon's books will be necessary, to vindi- 
cate Mr. Wells in the full sense of the word. It was not misrepresenting the ideas and 
intentions of M. Proudhon, — what Mr. Wells said, — but giving them in their true light. 

" Again : M. Proudhon is not the inventor, only the imitator, of the doctrine that prop- 
erty was theft. The merit of it belongs to M. Brissot in his Recherchespliilosophiqu.es sur 
le Droit de Propriete et le Vol, jwblies 17S0. M. Proudhon, however, re-asserts his own 
doctrine in plain words on p. 363, vol. i., of his book, De la Justice dans la Revolution et 
I'Fglise, 3 vols., published in 185S; and again in his posthumous work, The'orie de la 
Propriete, 1865. He admits expressly that he had made a mistake in setting up the doc- 
trine of a third principle, to equalize the contradiction of property and communism. What 
he meant by this third principle, which he represents as a higher synthesis, M. Proudhon 
has never developed. 

" M. Proudhon was a brilliant dialectician of the school of Hegel, with Kant's antino- 
my. His language was splendid, his imagination rich; but his thoughts were confused, 
and without any logic. His mind was permanently filled with isms in opposition to every 
thing. Proudhon is dead since 1865; he and his works are forgotten in Europe; and, the 
less the Americans know both, the better it will be for their welfare. 

" Respectfully, W. Jungst." 

" Cincinnati, Aug. 26, 1S75. 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 15 

it will follow, that " the commonest or the most obscure laborer will live, 
if he chooses, in dwellings as beautiful and as convenient as any which 
are now monopolized by the wealthy" 1 To render his plan, however, 
in any degree practicahle, the author singularly omitted to provide by 
statute, that all men should be born with an exact physical and mental 
capacity for production, and that, if any one by increased industry or 
frugality should perchance produce more than another, the surplus 
should be forcibly taken from him without compensation. Under such 
circumstances it cannot be doubted that all at no distant day would 
come to live in houses of equal similarity ; but the style of architecture 
which would prevail would probably closely resemble that which now 
characterizes such truly free localities as the Desert of Sahara, the inte- 
rior of Caffre-land, or the domains of the Esquimaux. 

Other illustrations to the same effect may be found in the circum- 
stance that a paper is now issued regularly in New England, which is 
devoted mainly to the object of combating the receipt of interest or 
hire for tho loan or use of capital, or, what is the same thing (whether 
the editors be or be not conscious of it), of combating abundance or 
accumulation ; that the same idea finds favor in numerous pam- 
phlets recently issued in various parts of the country, some of which 
exhibit no small ability ; and finally in the disposition so frequently 
evinced by our legislative bodies, to deal with corporate property in 
accordance with the principle of might, rather than in accordance with 
the principle of right. 

It is therefore well for us, even here in this boasted land of free- 
dom and intelligence, occasionally to go back to first principles, and 
see where these ideas about the distribution of wealth by direct or 
indirect compulsion, or about diminishing the incentives for personal 
accumulation, are likely to lead us. 

It is evident, in the first place, that such notions are wholly antag- 
onistic to the idea of personal freedom, unless we mean to restrict the 
meaning of freedom simply to the possession and control of one's own 
person irrespective of property, which would involve little more than 
the right to free locomotion; and, second, that they tend to impair 
the growth of, if not wholly to destroy, civilization itself. For if liberty 
is not afforded to all, rich and poor, high and low, to keep, and to use 
in whatever way they may see fit, that which they lawfully acquire, 
subject only to the necessary social restraint of working no positive ill 
to one's neighbor, — then the desire to acquire and accumulate property 
will be taken away ; and capital, meaning thereby not merely money, 
which constitutes but a very small part of the capital of any community, 

1 The Meaning of the Eight-Hour Movement. Ira Steward, Boston, 1868. 



16 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

but all those things which are the accumulated results of labor, fore- 
sight, and economy, — the machinery by which abundance is increased, 
toil lightened, and comfort gained, — will, instead of increasing, 
rapidly diminish. 

And, in order to comprehend the full meaning of this statement, 
allow me to call your attention to an illustration of the extreme slow- 
ness with which that which we call capital accumulates, even under the 
most favorable circumstances. 

By the census of 1870, the aggregate wealth of the United States, 
making all due allowances for duplication in valuation, was probably 
not in excess of twenty-jive thousand millions. But vast as the sum 
is, and difficult as it certainly is for the mind to form any adequate 
conception of it in the aggregate, it is nevertheless most interesting to 
inquire what it is, that measured by human effort, it represents. And 
the answer is, that it represents, first, a value, supposing the whole sum 
to be apportioned equally, of about six hundred and twenty dollars to 
each individual, — not a large amount, if one was to depend on its 
interest at six per cent as a means of support ; and, second, it represents 
the surplus result of all the labor, skill, and thought exerted, and all 
the capital earned and saved, or brought into the country, for the last 
two hundred and fifty years, or ever since the country became practi- 
cally the abode of civilized men. 

Now, with capital, or the instrumentalities for creating abundance, 
increasing thus slowl} 7 , it certainly stands to reason that we needs be 
exceedingly careful, lest, by doing any thing to impair its security, we 
impair also its rate of increase ; and we accordingly find, as we should 
naturally expect from the comparatively high education of our people, 
that the idea of any direct interference with the rights of property 
meets with but little favor upon this side of the Atlantic. But at the 
same time we cannot deny that many of the most intelligent of the 
men and women interested in the various labor-reform movements in 
this country, taking as the basis of their reasoning the large nominal 
aggregate of the national wealth, and the large advance which has 
recently been made in the power of production, and considering them 
in the abstract, irrespective of time or distribution, have nevertheless 
adopted the idea, — vague and shadowy though it may be, — that the 
amount of the present annual product of labor and capital is suffi- 
cient for all ; and that all it is necessary to do to insure comfort and 
abundance to the masses, is for the State somehow to intervene, — 
either by fixing the hours of labor, or the rates of compensation for 
service, or the use of capital, — and compel its more equitable distri- 
bution. 

Now, that a more equitable distribution of the results of production 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 17 

is desirable, and that such a distribution does not at present take place 
to the extent that it might without impairing the exercise of individual 
freedom, must be admitted ; but, before undertaking to make laws on 
the subject, is it not of importance to first find out how much we have 
really got to divide ? 

Let us see. 

Stated in money, the maximum value of the annual product of the 
United States is not in excess of $7,000,000,000 (probably less) ; of 
which the value of the annual product of all our agriculture, — our cot- 
ton and our corn, our beef and our pork, our hay, our wheat, and all our 
other fruits, — is returned by the last census with undoubted approxi- 
mative accuracy, at less than one-half that sum ; or in round numbers 
at $2,400,000,000. 

But while this sum of estimated yearly income, like the figures 
which report the aggregate of our national wealth, is so vast as to be 
almost beyond the power of mental conception, there is yet one thing 
about it which is certain, and can be readily comprehended ; and that 
is, that of this whole product, whether we measure it in money or in 
any other way, fully nine-tenths, and probably a larger proportion, 
must be immediately consumed, in order that we may simply live, and 
make good the loss and waste of capital previously accumulated ; 
leaving not more than one-tenth to be applied in the form of accumula- 
tion for effecting a future increased production and development. 

Or to state the case differently, and at the same time illustrate how 
small, even under the most favorable circumstances, can be the annual 
surplus of production over consumption, it is only necessary to compare 
the largest estimate of the value of our annual product, with our lar- 
gest estimate of the aggregate national wealth, to see, that practically, 
after two hundred and fifty years of toiling and saving, we have only 
managed as a nation to get about three and a half years ahead, in the 
way of subsistence ; and that now if, as a whole people, we should 
stop working and producing, and repairing waste and deterioration, 
and devote ourselves exclusively to amusement and idleness, living on 
the accumulation of our former labors or the labor of our fathers, four 
years would be more than sufficient to starve three-fourths of us out of 
existence, and reduce the other one-fourth to the condition of semi- 
barbarism ; a result, on the whole, which it is well to think of in con- 
nection with the promulgation of certain new theories, that the best 
way of increasing abundance, and promoting comfort and happiness, is 
by decreasing the aggregate and opportunities of production. 

In fact, there are few things more transitory and perishable than 
that which we call wealth ; and, as specifically embodied in the ordinary 
forms we see about us, its duration is not, on the average, in excess of 
the life of a generation. 



18 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

The railroad system of the country is estimated to have cost more 
than two thousand millions of dollars ; but if left to itself, without 
renewals or repairs, its value as property in ten years would entirely 
vanish ; and so also with our ships, our machinery, our tools and imple- 
nents, and even our land when cultivated without renovation. For it 
is to be remembered, that those same forces of nature which we have 
mastered, and made subservient for the work of production, are also our 
greatest natural enemies, and if left to themselves will tear down and 
destroy much more rapidly than under guidance they will aggregate 
and build up. A single night was sufficient in Chicago to utterly 
destroy what was equivalent to one quarter of the whole surplus prod- 
uct which during the preceding year the nation had accumulated ; and 
of all the material wealth of the great and rich nations of antiquity, — 
°f Egyptian, Assyrian, Tyriau, and Eoman civilization, — nothing what- 
ever has come down to us, except, singularly enough, those things which, 
like their tombs and public monuments, never were possessed of a 
money valuation. 

But the inferences which we are warranted in drawing from these 
facts and figures are by no means exhausted. Supposing the value of 
our annual product — seven thousand millions — to be equally divided 
among our present population of forty millions : then the average in- 
come of each individual would be $175 per annum; out of which 
food, clothing, fuel, shelter, education, travelling expenses, and means 
of enjoyment, are to be provided, all taxes paid, all waste, loss, and 
depreciation made good, and any surplus available as new capital added 
to former accumulations. 

Now, if at first thought this deduction of the average individual 
income of our people seems small, it should be remembered that it is 
based on an estimate of annual national product greater both in the 
aggregate, and in proportion to numbers, than is enjoyed by any other 
nation, our compeers in wealth and civilization ; and, further, that this 
$175 is not the sum which all actually receive as income, but the aver- 
age sum which each would receive, were the whole annual product 
divided equally. But as a practical matter we know that the annual 
product is not divided equally ; and, furthermore, that, as long as men 
are born with different natural capacities, it never will be so divided. 
Some will receive, and do receive, as their share of the annual product, 
the annual average we have stated, multiplied by hundreds or even 
thousands ; which of course necessitates that very many others shall 
receive proportionally less. And how much less, is indicated by recent 
investigations which show, that for the whole country the average earn- 
ings of laborers and unskilled workmen is not in excess of four hundred 
dollars per annum, — the maximum amount being received in New Eng- 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 19 

land and the minimum in bhe Southern, or former slaveholding States ; 
Si sum, assuming that the families of all these men consist o on 
(the census of 1875 says five), two adults and two children would _g,ve 
one hundred dollars as the average amount which each ndmdual of 
.ass referred to produces, and also the amount to which each .nch 
individual must he restricted in consumption; for it ,s clear, thut no 
m an can consume more than he or his capital produces, unless 1, can 
in some way obtain the product of some other man's labor without 
crivino- him an equivalent for it. 

& We are thus led to the conclusion, that notwithstanding he wonder- 
ful extent to which we have been enabled to use and control the forces 
of nature for the purpose of increasing the power of products the 
ime has not yet colne, when society in the United States can command 
such a degree of absolute abundance as to justify and warrant any 
class or individual, rich or poor, and least of all those who depend 
upon the product of each day's labor to meet each day's needs, in doing 
any thin, which can in anyway tend to diminish abundance ; and 
ZLL, that the agency of law, even if invoked to the fules 
extent in compelling distribution, must be exceedingly limited in its 

'TeTtTe working-man of the United States therefore in every voca- 
tion, demand and strive, if he will, for the largest possible share of ^ he 
join! products of labor and capital 5 for it is the natural right of eve y 
one to seek to obtain the largest price for that which he has to sell 
But if in so doing he restricts production, and so diminishes abundance, 
he does it at his peril 5 for, by a law far above any legislative control or 
influence, whatever increases scarcity not only increases the necessity, 
but diminishes the rewards of labor. 

Street processions, marching after flags and patriotic mottoes, even 
if held every clay in the week, will never change the conditions which 
govern production and compensation. « Idleness produces nothing but 
weeds and rust ; and such products are not marketable anywhere, though 
society often pays for them most dearly." 

But if law, acting in the manner proposed by the representatives of 
the working-men, is not likely to avail any thing, and if abundance is 
not as great as it might be, and distribution not as equitable as it 
ought to be, wherein is the remedy ? Shall we let things drift along as 
in times past, trusting that Providence will finally do for us what we 
are unwilling or unable to do for ourselves ? 

My answer to this is, that the first step towards effecting a solution 
of the problem under consideration is to endeavor to clearly comprehend 
the conditions involved in it; and that, when we have entered upon an 
investigation for that purpose, we shall soon see that the causes winch 



20 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

tend to diminish abundance, and restrict the rewards of labor, in the 
Old World, are not the same as exist in the New ; and that therefore 
the agencies adopted for relief in the one case are not likely to prove 
remedial in the other. 

In the Old World, the prime cause of the lack of abundance, 
and its resulting pauperism, is an over-crowded and increasing popu- 
lation. 

All the natural resources, originally the free gift of Nature, have 
long ago been fully appropriated, and in part exhausted. Every foot 
of arable land has its owner or tenant; every mine, quarry, forest, or 
tree-bearing fruit, its possessor ; and even the right to fish in the 
waters, orcapture the wild beasts of the field or the fowls of the air. 
has become in a great degree an exclusive privilege. 

When there is but one to buy, and two to sell, the buyer fixes the price. 
When there are two to buy, and only one to- sell, the seller has the 
advantage. 

Now, Europe, in respect to labor, has been for centuries the seller, 
rather than the buyer, of labor ; and the buyer, therefore, has always 
been, and is now, all-powerful in fixing its price, and controlling it to 
his advantage. Again, in a country whose natural capital or resources — 
i.e., fertile and cheap land, abundant timber, food, minerals, &c. — is 
unexhausted or unappropriated, as in the United States, the rewards 
of labor, or wages, will be necessarily high ; and on the other hand, 
where the reverse condition of things prevails, as in Europe, the rewards 
of labor, as expressed in wages, must be comparatively less. In other 
words, as has been pointed out by Prof. Cairnes, "So far as high wages 
and profits are indications of cost of production at all, high wages and 
profits are indications of a low cost of production, since they are 
indications, — being, in fact, the direct results, — of high industrial 
productiveness." Nothing, therefore, more strikingly illustrates the 
difference in the conditions of the labor-problem in Europe and the 
United States, than the difference in the average rate of the wages of 
labor in the two countries ; and also the fallacy of the popular notion, 
that legislative interference is necessary in the United States to protect 
domestic industry against the pauper-labor of Europe ; or, in other 
words, to protect the people of the United States against the evils of 
abundance. 

Under such a state of things, therefore, the efficient remedy, and 
indeed the only remedy, against pauperism in an over-crowded 
country, must be emigration ; and it is one of the most curious of 
social phenomena, that, while the results of the most recent investiga- 
tions show that thousands in the great cities of Europe arc annually 
crowded out of existence by the mere fact of their numbers, there are 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 21 

yet almost continental areas of the earth's surface, healthy, easy of 
access, and comparatively uninhabited, where the amount of labor 
necessary to secure all the essentials of a simple livelihood is but little 
in excess of the instinctive requirements of the system for physical 
exercise ; as, for example, in the delicious islands of Polynesia, where 
a temperature obviating any requirement for artificial heat prevails 
uninterruptedly, and where the plantain, the cocoa-palm, and the bread- 
fruit spring up and flourish spontaneously ; and also in the West 
Indies, where the late Charles Kingsley, in his book "A Christmas in 
the West Indies " (1871), says, that one of the first things which a 
visitor learns in landing at " Port of Spain," in the Island of Trinidad, 
is, that there are eight thousand persons, or about one-third of the 
population of the city, who have no visible means of support, or who 
live without regular employment, and yet are evidently strong, healthy, 
and well-fed. The same author also describes the life of an English 
emigrant in this island, whom he visited, as follows : — 

"The sea gives him fish enough for his family. His cocoa-palms 
yield him a little revenue. He has poultry, kids, and goat's milk more 
than he needs. His patch of provision-ground gives him corn and 
roots, sweet potatoes, and fruits all the year round. He needs nothing, 
and fears nothing, owes nothing. 

But, per contra, Mr. Kingsley adds : — 

"News and politics are to him like the distant murmur of the surf 
at the back of the island, — a noise which is nought to him. His 
Bible, his almanac, and three or four old books on a shelf, are his 
whole library. He has all that man needs, more than man deserves, 
and is far tod wise to wish to better himself; " which last expression is 
equivalent to saying, that, the animal wants being abundantly satisfied, 
he wishes to remain an animal. And this conclusion, furthermore, 
may be regarded as -the result of necessity rather than of choice ; for, 
if man resident in the tropics is desirous of any thing much beyond 
what Nature furnishes almost as a free gift, the realization of the 
desire can only be attained through labor under conditions of climate 
so exhausting that the white race shrinks from its execution, and for 
the most part is incapable of its endurance; as is seen, for example, in 
the raising of cotton, coffee, sugar, and other similar tropical produc- 
tions. And it would indeed seem as if Nature, in view of the fact that 
great physical exertion and an elevated temperature are incompatible, 
had made provision for man's residence in the tropics by furnishing 
him, with the minimum of exertion, those vegetable products which 
are especially adapted to maintain and support a physical existence. 
And whether we admit the example of design, or not, it is certainly 
curious to note how man, when transferred from temperate zones 



22 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

to tropics, instinctively adapts himself to these conditions, and ex- 
changes a life of activity for one of indolence. Of this, the descrip- 
tion of the European emigrant in the West Indies, which I have quoted 
from Mr. Kingsley, is one illustration. Another is to he found in the 
fact, often noted and commented on, of the rapidity with which young 
men of New England, sent out as clerks or factors to Singapore, Manilla, 
or Calcutta, exchange their original physical and intellectual activity for 
the listless indolence of the native population. And, descending to the 
animal kingdom, it is said that the northern honey-bee, trans- 
ported to the West Indies, ceases after the first season to make provis- 
ion for the winter, and, laying aside its habits of industry with the 
necessity for exertion, becomes not only a drone, but a veritable pest 
to the community. 

In the United States, on the other hand, the case is entirely different. 
We have, in the first place, no excess of population in proportion to the 
area of country inhabited; but, on the contrary, we have, as a source of 
abundance and a certain barrier against want, that which no nation of 
Europe possesses ; namely, an almost unlimited supply of cheap, fertile 
land. We have such a variety of soil, of climate, and of crop, that a 
deficiency of food, which in very many civilized countries is ever a source 
of anxiety, is with us a matter of impossibility ; for the very conditions 
which tend to reduce the aggregate of the crops in one section tend to 
increase their fruition in some other. We have, as it were, the monopoly 
of the staple textile fibre of the world's clothing. We have more of 
coal, the symbol and the source of mechanical power, than exists in all 
other countries. We have every facility, natural and artificial, for the 
transportation and exchange of products. We have a 'form of gov- 
ernment in which the will of the people constitutes the law. We have, 
in short, all the conditions which give to labor its greatest productive- 
ness, and to capital its greatest reward. And if to-day these conditions 
are not fulfilled ; if there is not to-daj r unison between labor and capital ; 
if there is not a sufficient degree of material abundance, and a suffi- 
cient equity in its distribution, to lift up life among the masses, and 
make it somewhat more than a struggle for existence, — then we shall 
be forced to one of two conclusions : either the obstacles which militate 
and prevent these results are all artificial ; or that it is in accordance 
with the designs of Providence, that there shall always be a needy and 
dependent class, that there is a natural antagonism between labor and 
capital, and that the capacity of the earth for production is not ade- 
quate to meet the natural increase of the population that Providence 
has placed upon it. 

Now, I, for one, fully accept the first of these conclusions, and wholly 
reject the latter. And although there is much about us which would 



THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 23 

seem to indicate that the characteristic evils which affect society in the 
Old World are being transferred to the New ; though the present ten- 
dency seems to be towards a concentration of wealth in a few hands, to 
make the rich richer and the poor poorer, — I nevertheless feel certain 
that the causes which have led to these results, and which for the present 
stand in the way of a greater abundance and a larger life, are wholly 
within our control, and essentially different from the causes which in 
Europe are recognized as working disadvantageously to the interests of 
the masses. To specifically enumerate them, and to point out the 
degree in which each is operative, may not as yet, through lack of 
reliable data, be practicable ; but, generalizing broadly, three causes 
may be mentioned as especially militating against the augmentation 
of abundance in the United States : — 

First, Failure to secure the proper and possible maximum of produc- 
tion in industrial enterprises which have long since passed beyond the 
domain of experiment. 

Second, Inexcusable and inordinate waste in using. 

Third, Inequalities in distribution, due to obstructions created by 
legislation. 

I have thus reviewed, as briefly as the subject will admit, some of 
the principal obstacles which at present, in this country, seem to me 
to stand in the way of a greater material abundance, a more equitable 
distribution, and a larger life. Did time and opportunity suffice, an 
almost infinite amount of curious and interesting illustrations, drawn 
from our recent national experiences, might be given ; but, apart from 
any further detail, the general results of our economic progress since 
1860 may be summed in brief as follows : We have increased the 
power of production with a given amount of personal effort throughout 
the country, probably at least fifteen, and possibly twenty per cent. 
We have increased the cost of living within the same period, to the 
masses, to the extent of from thirty to fifty per cent. But startling as 
is this statement, the truth of which any man can verify if he will, the 
attainment of a better result is entirely within the power of society in 
this country to effect, if it will only avail itself of remedies whose sim- 
plicity and effectiveness long experience has proved beyond all contro- 
versy. 

But herein consists the difficulty. Like Naainan the Syrian, we 
are anxious to be cleansed ; but, like Naaman, we expect to be called 
upon to do some great thing, and experience a measure of disappoint- 
ment when told that the simplest measures are likely to prove the 
most effectual. 

In point of natural resources, Providence has given us all that we 
desire. And that these resources may be made productive of abundance, 



24 THE PE0Dl ™ «° — 0N 0P W, ALTH 

great and overflowing, to all mrt. i 

« *• part of society, a ^ P^of the individual! and seOTirf 
un, ty to eserthis tobj^ aud £™ "•* ™» *all have an opp or J 
freedom and the greatest intelHgete a ? d l"*"* ** "» *»* 
™ will have solved the problem Tnvol £ " S ° Ci °^ hils d ™ e *% 
»d labor softrastJle J" B « »^™d >n the relatione of capital' 

*■ » *™ g to each man opportn^ f^""" 1 ° f h ™» «8«7J 

"Whgenee, we invest Mm, asTw^T"" 1 *"'* fc ^o.n and 

make h lm sovereign ever himself" ' ""' ™™ » d -itre, and 



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